Elections with no tolerable choices

In the past week, a presidential election was held in Russia (on March 4), and the "Super Tuesday" primary elections were held in a number of US states for Republican presidential candidates (as well as Congressional candidates from both major parties, though I won't discuss those here). Unfortunately, in both cases there was no chance of anyone who could really be considered halfway decent winning, so the best we can hope for in analyzing the results is a few positive signs for the future.

In Russia, it was a foregone conclusion that Vladimir Putin, prime minister and former president, would win the election. Despite his party's relatively poor showing in the recent legislative elections, the subsequent large protests over ballot stuffing and other irregularities, and general disillusionment, Putin retains a fair measure of popularity among ordinary Russians. Furthermore, the resources of the state, including all major media sources, were mobilized to support his candidacy, giving him an overwhelming advantage in campaigning that his opponents could not hope to overcome (one of the reasons European election observers concluded the elections were not free and fair). Though some steps were taken in response to criticism of cheating by the ruling party in the legislative elections, there were still reports of irregularities in some areas. Finally, there were no really decent opposition candidates. Candidates from liberal parties such as Yabloko were blocked from running, leaving only the communist Zyuganov, the right-wing nationalist Zhirinovsky, the leader of a smaller party and a tycoon who entered the race late as an independent. The latter two had in the past expressed strong support for Putin, so many questioned how serious they were about beating him. As a result, Putin won with over 60% of the vote, not quite as overwhelmingly as in 2004 when he won over 70% (his stand-in Medvedev won a similar percentage in 2008), but still easily. Zyuganov managed 17%, and all of the other candidates got less than 10%. If I had been a Russian voter, I would have voted to indicate that I cared who led the country, but I would have cast a blank ballot (interestingly, in 2004 Russians could vote "against all", but that option seems to have been taken off the ballot since then).

The situation in the Republican primaries was (and is) no better. The only Republican candidate whose positions on a substantial number of issues were at least tolerable, Jon Huntsman, is long gone from the race. While the front-runner, Mitt Romney, has in the past taken moderate positions on many issues, he has been running as hard as he can away from them for the entire campaign. The best that can be said for his closest contender, Rick Santorum, is that a few of his statements on human rights and its relation to foreign policy have been good; otherwise his positions are generally about as bad as can be. Similarly, perhaps the only good idea Newt Gingrich has had was advocating a permanent moon base (sure, it is completely inconsistent with his positions on tax and budget issues, but in and of itself it is an idea I could support); on virtually every other issue he is terrible. Ron Paul, as a libertarian, has a few decent positions, like being in favor of ending the war on drugs and being less aggressively anti-immigrant or anti-gay marriage. His opposition to foreign intervention by the US also sets him apart from the other Republican candidates, though he carries it too far the other way, opposing even humanitarian intervention. But on most fronts, a Ron Paul presidency would be a disaster, as would any libertarian presidency (he's not even entirely consistent as a libertarian, since he opposes abortion -- even if he wants the states to outlaw it rather than the federal government -- and some of his past votes on immigration have been in favor of restricting free movement of people).

Giving these choices, it's hard to say what to hope for. While Obama has been well short of perfect, he is far and away better than any of his prospective opponents (unless a really good third party candidate gets on the ballot). Given that, maybe the best result one can hope for in the Republican primaries is one that improves Obama's chances. With that in mind, many Democrats have been rooting for someone like Santorum or Gingrich to win, since Obama would be more likely to beat them. The only problem I have with that is Santorum and Gingrich are so awful that I just can't make myself cheer for them. Also, my confidence in the basic sense of independent and swing voters is not strong enough. Sure, I think the majority of them would reject an obviously extreme candidate like Santorum in the general election, but what if a severe economic downturn or other disaster caused Obama's ratings to drop so that many of his supporters stayed home and swing voters simply cast votes against him, regardless of how bad the Republican candidate was? We could actually end up with Santorum (or Gingrich, on the unlikely chance that he somehow won the nomination) as president. Not that Romney as president would be much (if any) better -- it's just that I can't quite make myself root for any of his opponents. I'm more inclined to hope that a long drawn out nomination battle leaves the Republicans in disarray and gives middle-of-the-road voters more chances to see how awful they are (though that should have been obvious long ago).